


how to tell if your teacher is a wanted criminal (and other lessons)

by saplingsparrow



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, It doesn’t end well, Teacher AU, a child wants to pass her exams and Jon fucks it up, hardly but just in case!, it’s from a cryptic child’s point of view, jon becomes a teacher, mild gore?, outsider pov, teacher!jon, this fits literally no tags so idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24543052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saplingsparrow/pseuds/saplingsparrow
Summary: there’s something strange about the new teacher at the village secondary school.alternate title: pupil roasts jonathan sims for 9,000 words
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 75
Kudos: 1133





	how to tell if your teacher is a wanted criminal (and other lessons)

**Author's Note:**

> jon is a teacher. jon is also a chaotic bastard.
> 
> inspired by this brilliant post by levencamthenone on tumblr and this amazing comic by ehlihr!!
> 
> https://levencamthenone.tumblr.com/post/619474234197032960/ok-i-love-the-jon-sims-becomes-a-teacher-au  
> https://ehlihr.tumblr.com/post/616073563209908224/been-obsessed-with-the-idea-of-schoolteacher-jon
> 
> by the way, I got confused and ended up seriously fucking up the timeline for this- basically shift the safehouse period to march and make it Long. jon gets a job as a teacher to cover expenses. shit occurs in a non-linear order.

Naomi McIntyre was starting to wonder if she had been cursed. 

Not only had she failed three out of six prelims, but she had barely scraped a pass in English, the only subject she actively enjoyed. Her parents were breathing down her neck, her friends were all dating assorted pupils from ‘another school’, and her final exams were less than three months away. The threat of actual, genuine failure had been so laughable before that she’d barely studied, but now it weighed heavily above everything she did, readying itself to crush her quite suddenly and without warning. Alright, she knew she wasn’t exactly a model pupil, but she was comfortably average without putting in any real effort, and was determined to remain that way. 

And so she had started to work. Websites, textbooks, calling her sister at uni and begging her for help- if she thought of something she tried it, no matter how stupid it made her feel. She read books. She emailed her primary school teacher. She had a Plan, one that centred around not only passing English, but getting an A. Other subjects could wait; no, she wasn’t doing any better in them, but she might as well start narrowing down her choices now, and anyway, English was a required exam. She couldn’t bear retaking it. 

Everything was laid out. All the variables were accounted for.

Which is to say, she was less than delighted when, upon entering her English class on the first day back after Easter, she was met with a new teacher. 

It wasn’t even as though she had liked this man’s predecessor- Mr Anderson had been ancient, practically crumbling onto the carpet, and she could count on one hand the number of times he had mentioned something even remotely relevant to the course. Still, he’d been disengaged enough to make it easy to daydream without interruption, and she’d spent the past two years in a friendly one-sided rivalry with him, leaving her with a sort of grudging affection for the man. Of course, she’d known he would retire at some point- he had strongly resembled a skeleton, and guesses regarding his age ranged from 60 to somewhere approaching 100- but she certainly hadn’t expected him to leave right in the middle of a term. _Especially_ not the term before her National 5 exams. She simply hadn’t considered it.

And so it was a mixture of shock and something close to anger that hit her as she stepped through the door. Mr Anderson’s familiar classroom setup had been dismantled entirely, with desks now lined up neatly in rows, and the dusty collage of photos and flyers had been cleared from the wall. Even his worn desk chair (which was, admittedly, probably a biohazard) had been removed. The place was soulless, practically bare, the only decoration something that appeared to be a small framed photo reflecting sunlight off the desk. 

Distaste rising bitter in her mouth, she directed her attention towards the man scrawling with a marker pen on the whiteboard. He was distinctly odd looking, short and slender, the long dark hair that stretched down his back streaked with grey. His face and hands were peppered with scars (was that a handprint? surely not) and he had the air about him of not having slept in several weeks. Despite not seeming particularly old, maybe in his thirties or forties, he was dressed like a colourblind eighty year old, in an unfortunate green jumper and horribly clashing baggy red trousers. She really, _really_ hoped that wasn’t a _Visit Scotland!_ highland cow pin badge attached to his coat.

With a strange surge of pride, she realised that she was taller than him.

He turned to face her and gave her what could charitably have been called a kind smile, stepping back to admire his handiwork (a name, scribbled in passable handwriting). Naomi used this momentary window of opportunity to check if any other students had arrived before her- no, as luck would have it, they had not. After lingering in the doorway for as long as was reasonable, she reluctantly stepped through the door and into the unknown. Why on Earth was she so nervous?

She flung herself into an appropriate desk (not near enough to the front to attract attention, not so far back that she would have to engage in conversation with her classmates) but before she could rescue her jotter from the depths of her backpack, she received a pointed look from the teacher- Mr Sims, according to the name written on the whiteboard. He nodded his head at a small piece of paper on his desk.

Oh God. 

He hadn’t- had he? Naomi stood slowly and approached the desk, apprehension flooding her throat, all the while trying to determine just what exactly the expression on the man’s face was supposed to be. Annoyance? Smug pleasure? Some twisted display of fear? 

Whatever it was, it was unsettling, and she felt his eyes pressing onto her neck as she cautiously lifted the paper to reveal exactly what she had feared. A seating chart. 

Really? A seating chart? A second burst of indignation shot through her, and she opened her mouth to make a feeble protestation but stopped just short of speaking. Some small thing inside her told her it wouldn’t be a wise decision. Still, there was absolutely no way she was sitting next to Benjamin, of all people, and in the first row, too. That wasn’t an option she was willing to consider. 

Much to her relief, the rest of the class began to file into the room, providing a welcome respite from the horribly awkward non-interaction with Mr Sims. She watched with smug satisfaction as he tried in vain to direct attention towards the seating arrangement without actually speaking, a valiant attempt at passive-aggressively coughing the class into submission, giving up at last when a pupil walked directly into him, knocking him backwards.

“Class, there is a seating chart at the front of the class with Miss McIntyre, if you would please check it and find your assigned seat.” His voice was louder than she had expected, weighted with thick exasperation and clear exhaustion. More notably, however, he spoke with a gratingly posh English accent, a fact which Naomi immediately held against him. Of course he was English. Of course he was. 

She was so intently focused on his voice that it was several minutes before she realised that there was no way he could have known who she was simply by looking at her. 

Much to her irritation, it seemed that the majority of the class was doing as the chart commanded, so she found her backpack (flung halfway across the classroom in a mysterious accident) and threw herself into her designated seat in the front row. From this new vantage point, she had a closer view of the oddly shaped scar on her teacher’s hand- it was definitely some kind of handprint, though how on Earth it had got there she hadn’t the slightest clue. Had someone shook his hand so hard it left burn marks? 

More concerning, though, was the additional scar she hadn’t noticed previously. It was a thin white line across his neck, forming an uneven path from one side to the other. Had someone tried to slit this man’s throat? The thought was so alien and bizarre that she almost laughed out loud before catching herself at the last second- who would bother murdering a man who dressed like that? Unless, of course, that outfit had been the inciting factor. 

She settled back into her seat, filled with a complacent sense of victory. She already knew just how much of a train wreck this lesson was about to be. 

When the class had finally settled into some semblance of quiet, he spoke again. 

“Thank you. As you’ve probably noticed, Mr Anderson decided to retire suddenly before the half-term, so I am his replacement. My name is J- Mr Sims, and I will be teaching you up until your exams in June. Are there any questions?”

A sea of hands flew up. Clearly the rest of her classmates were just as intrigued by this strange addition to the faculty as she was. 

“Yes? Mitchell?”

A broad-shouldered boy with a shaved head shouted from the very back of the classroom. “Are you English, sir?” 

A few scattered giggles rang through the room, drowned out by Mr Sims’ reply. “Yes, I am. I moved here from London. Anyone else?”

He picked a youngish girl Naomi hadn’t spoken to before. “Why did you move here?”

“We- I just wanted a change, I suppose,” he replied, barely disguising a wince. “London can become quite unpleasant after a while. Daniel?”

“Why did Mr Anderson retire?”

“I don’t know, I’m afraid.” 

“Why do you teach English?”

“Well, it’s- um, I like it? It’s a fascinating subject. Who else? No, don’t shout out, please. Rachel.”

“How do you know all of our names?”

At this question, Mr Sims visibly paled. “I... looked at the register?”

“What’s your favourite colour?”

“Um, green, I think.”

“What’s-”

“Ok, I think that’s enough questions for today. Any others you can ask me in your free time, but we should probably start the class now.”

“What’s the scar on your neck? Did you get jumped or something?” This comment came from Mitchell, who seemed very pleased with himself and was rapidly growing rather irritating. 

One hand subconsciously rising to his throat, the man opened his mouth to reply several seconds before finding the words he wanted to use. “It’s, um, it’s a birthmark,” he finally decided on, rather unconvincingly. “Now, can we get to work please? Thank you.” 

He strode over to his desk and rummaged around beneath it to pull out a small paperback. 

“So I was told that Mr Anderson was taking you through An Inspector Calls for your exam text. Can anyone tell me where you got up to?”

He was answered by puzzled silence. 

“Right. Well, regardless, in order to truly understand this play, we must first understand the sociopolitical climate at the time it was written. J.B. Priestley, the playwright, was himself very politically involved-”

And so followed a truly impressive, if not slightly concerning, thirty minute lecture on British socialism in the 1940s. It would likely have been interesting had the train of thought not been so convoluted and difficult to follow. The man spoke of political figures as though they were old friends, frequently referring to them by first name alone, and on at least three occasions switching viewpoint entirely. However, it had to be said that there was something oddly compelling about the way he spoke, voice so full of genuine passion, eyes never quite meeting those of his audience. It hardly seemed like he was in the room at all, but still the class watched him with rapt attention, and quite contrary to her intentions, Naomi found herself hanging off his every word. Though she hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, she was determined to understand it, somehow. 

So caught up in the lesson was she that she was almost disappointed when the voice trailed off at last and the teacher cleared his throat self-consciously. 

“Well, that’s probably enough of that for today. Now, are you sure you don’t remember the page number? Anyone? Naomi.”

Registering her name with a start, she snapped her head up to meet the speaker’s eyes, which, she noted vaguely, seemed very different to before. “It’s page forty-seven,” she replied, barely registering the words as they left her mouth. “Three quarters of the way down. Sheila’s line.” How the fuck did she know that? And what was this strange desire that filled her, this compulsion to let everything tangled up inside her mind spill from her mouth? She clamped her jaw firmly shut and stared down at the floor, unease twisting a hard knot in her stomach.

“Excellent, thank you. Everyone take out your exercise books, please.” 

The class obeyed instantly, Naomi included. Mr Sims lifted a stack of printed paper from the top of a filing cabinet (had they been there before? she honestly had no idea) and passed them to Samantha three desks along, who accepted and wordlessly began distributing them around the classroom. One landed on her desk, and she picked it up to read the words ‘GCSE English Literature: Modern Prose or Drama’. 

Oh for God’s _sake._ If her new teacher didn’t even understand the difference between curriculums, how on earth was she supposed to pass?

She raised her hand cautiously. “Um, Mr-” she glanced across to the whiteboard to confirm the name, “-Sims, you do know we don’t take GCSEs in Scotland?”

The man’s eyes widened, and for a moment he looked genuinely alarmed, before regaining his composure and responding. 

“I- yes, I knew that. I just thought it would- ah- enrich your knowledge.” 

_Bullshit,_ she thought, but resigned herself to a glare rather than an actual protestation. 

“If you would all please work through the second question. Remember to quote from the passage and take into account the context of the play’s setting.”

Despite not having the slightest clue how her answer was supposed to be structured, Naomi felt she had done a reasonably good job. She’d be damned if she was going to let this teacher see her as stupid- a good first impression was important, and if she’d made a terrible display of her personality earlier, she was determined to make up for it with her work. She didn’t have to like the man, and he certainly irritated her in some not-quite-tangible way, but she already held an odd respect for him, one that she had for few other teachers besides the headmistress. And perhaps her netball coach. 

Still, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him as she added her jotter to the growing pile on his desk. He looked exhausted and slightly bewildered and honestly, she didn’t blame him. Set 4 were notoriously difficult to cope with at the best of the times and he’d handled it admirably for a first-timer. She’d never seen her classmates so well behaved before, with even Mitchell subdued to only three or four inappropriate comments per hour. But, of course, teaching their particular class would certainly take it out of anyone, and she wouldn’t have been surprised at all if he quit immediately (it had happened to two separate substitutes the previous March when Mr Anderson had gone for his operation, one of whom was Samantha’s mum. It was really quite embarrassing). 

She shot him a brief, almost sympathetic smile and turned to leave, but as she did so, she realised she had full view of the framed photograph that sat ever so neatly on his desk. It seemed to be a Polaroid, oddly enough, and showed a small group clustered together around a desk, four of them in total- the man sitting at the front held a cake covered in candles in his hands, and was clearly a much younger Mr Sims, hair short and styled neatly beneath a particularly fetching red party hat. He seemed surprised, but not unhappy, and his whole face was more open, softer somehow. To his left, a pretty woman with long dark hair and glasses stood with her arm slung around his shoulder, mouth curled in a warm smile as she exchanged humoured glances with a tall, very attractive man who leaned across the desk, sporting a wide grin. Hovering at Mr Sims’s right was a man who Naomi was sure she recognised, wearing a thick woollen jumper and smiling nervously at the camera. The whole image was bursting with warmth, yet she felt something like sadness twist in her gut. The man in the photo stubbornly refused to blend with the one sitting in front of her, something about his eyes, and she immediately regretted judging his accent. (Stupid, really. It wasn’t like she had _said_ anything. It wasn’t like he knew.)

A quiet cough startled her back to her senses. 

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t-” she started, but Mr Sims cut her off. 

“Quite alright.” He spoke quietly, deliberately, with what could have been a hint of wistfulness just detectable in his voice. His eyes drifted towards the photo, and he watched it intently as he continued.“You’d better get to your next class. Wouldn’t want to be late.”

It took a full four hours for Naomi to figure out just where she recognised the man in the photo from. 

The evening was unfortunately cold for mid April and she found herself sorely wishing she had brought a scarf as she trudged home in the early dusk. Most of her friends lived closer to the village itself than she did; her home was nearly three miles down winding country tracks, past fields of cows and sheep and endless crops, and the majority of it she walked alone, earphones firmly planted in her ears. Her music was usually turned up as loud as possible without actually causing damage to her hearing, but she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was being watched, and so in a rare act of paranoia she hit pause halfway along the path and walked in silence. 

As far as she was aware, there were only one or two other cottages up this particular track- aside from the large farmhouse owned by an elderly couple, there was the smaller house in the woods occupied by the craft shop owner and her wife, as well as the literal shack that sat abandoned up a hill. It had been empty for years, and quite rightly, at least if the ridiculous ghost stories were to be believed. 

(She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but she believed.)

So all things considered, Naomi was not expecting to encounter anyone on her walk home. On rare occasions, she would encounter a lone dog walker, and once or twice she had walked alongside the elderly couple and chatted with them for a while. But these occurrences were familiar, unexpected but not uncomfortable. She knew how to react, what to say, whether a simple nod was satisfactory or if the situation called for the more delicate art of conversation. 

When the man in the thick woollen sweater appeared at the end of the path, she was well and truly taken aback. 

It was the man from the photograph, it _had_ to be. He was a little older, a little sadder, but otherwise he was practically unchanged, offering up a ready smile as he grew closer. 

“Hello!” His voice was quiet, cheerful, infuriatingly English. 

Unsure of exactly how to respond, Naomi simply returned the smile and increased her pace, praying he didn’t notice. She glanced backwards to see his back retreating in the direction of the village, and a week-old memory floated to the surface of her brain- he’d been in the queue at the small Tesco, basket containing what appeared to be the shop’s entire stock of tea. 

If _he_ lived up this way, then- oh God- surely that meant Mr Sims did too. Just where, exactly, she couldn’t be certain, but the mere suggestion he might have moved somewhere in the general vicinity of her home made her skin crawl with embarrassment. For a brief second, she opened her mouth to say something, anything- do you live up here, horrible weather isn’t it, what’s your name- but the urge passed quite suddenly and she stood floundering in the middle of the dirt track, wondering just what exactly had come over her. 

Stiffly, she turned back to face her destination and continued on her way. 

The next few days felt similar in both tone and content to a fever dream. 

Several more English lessons were scheduled in Naomi’s timetable, each stranger and less coherent than the last. On Tuesday, Mr Sims arrived panting three minutes after the bell laden with an enormous pile of paper fresh from the library printer, and only midway through their distribution did it become apparent that instead of printing two dozen copies of a worksheet as he had intended, he had somehow managed to print his entire email account. After the initial hilarity subsided (along with a multitude of unexciting professional messages from the rest of the faculty, there had been several sweet but very personal emails from someone with the account mkblackwood@themagnusinstitute.org.uk, which had caused an uproar even Mr Sims couldn’t control) a group of pupils took it upon themselves to teach him the ways of modern technology, with which he did not seem to be acquainted. If he hadn’t been able to quote vines verbatim (as demonstrated at Samantha’s request), she would have been convinced he was secretly a boomer. 

Wednesday’s double period consisted of a twenty minute monologue regarding Edwin Morgan’s poetry techniques (mainly criticisms), a YouTube video Mr Sims fell asleep during (thus falling victim to the perils of autoplay) and a memorable encounter involving Mitchell, four glue sticks, and the projector. The eighty minutes felt more like days, and Naomi left with the distinct feeling that every ounce of energy had been sucked from her by a vampire. Or whatever. She hadn’t read Dracula.

During Thursday’s lesson, Mr Sims, dressed in what may or may not have been a 90s band T-shirt, embarked on his most detailed and worryingly specific lecture yet, one which was recorded in its entirety by what appeared to be an old-fashioned tape recorder. At no point did he acknowledge or engage with the class, simply ranting on and on and on about key themes in post-war literature. His eyes were a deeply unnerving green. Naomi honestly couldn't sum up the energy to care.

On Friday, she arrived last period to see what appeared to be the dead body of Mr Sims slumped over the desk, rivulets of blood snaking over the wood and dripping steadily onto the floor. Luckily, her scream was loud enough to wake him up, though he did have to spend several minutes assuring her that he was, in fact, alive, and that the blood was nothing more than the aftermath of a heavy nosebleed (though she did see him stuffing something that looked suspiciously like the tape recorder from the day before into his desk drawer when he thought her back was turned). 

Fortunately enough, the lesson that followed took the form of a relaxed discussion about favourite books, allowing her the opportunity to zone out completely, staring at the square of blue sky visible through the window. She’d allowed herself to fall into such a deep daydream that she barely registered the bell, raising her head drowsily and collecting her books like a sleepwalker, the rest of the class rushing out through the door in an unintelligible flurry. By the time she had found her way across the classroom to the exit, she was alone besides Mr Sims, making it all the more hideously embarrassing when she slammed directly into the man from the photograph. From the shops. From the path. 

“Jon!” he had been exclaiming, bright smile filling his face. At least, she was fairly certain he had been, as he didn’t have time to finish before she went barrelling into him at full speed. 

She stumbled backwards, face hot with humiliation, but lost her balance at the last second and fell, colliding painfully with the floor.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Are you ok?”

The man extended a hand to help her up and she scrambled to her feet, stuttering out as many apologies as she could cram into one breath. He was laughing now, still looking faintly stunned, and seemed to be making eye contact with a spot somewhere behind her head.

Naomi remembered with a start that Mr Sims was still there. She spun around to see him biting back a laugh, exasperation and amusement intermingled on his face. 

“Martin, please refrain from knocking over my students.”

Martin-? That couldn’t be the mysterious mkblackwood, could it? Cheeks burning redder at the memory of just what had been in those emails, she grabbed her backpack from where it had fallen to the floor and sprinted out of the door at as fast a pace as she could manage, feet thundering down the emptying corridors, determined to put as much distance as possible between her and whatever the hell she had just done in front of her teacher and his boyfriend. 

Her friends had not waited for her, so the walk home was quieter and lonelier than she would perhaps have been comfortable with. Data signal anywhere outside the narrow perimeters of the village was absolutely shite, so she had to wait until reaching the relative safety of home before she could test her newest idea. It was something she had been itching to do for days, but had lacked the appropriate information- notably Mr Sims’ first name, which was perhaps the only constructive thing she had gained from any of her interactions with the man named Martin.

Shutting her bedroom door behind her and discarding her shoes, she flung herself down onto the limited amount of free carpet and fished her phone from her blazer pocket. 

_john sims_

_About 86,000,000 results (0.65 seconds)_

Nothing of any relevance whatsoever- John Simm, an actor, who she thought she might have seen on Doctor Who once or twice, followed by a string of increasingly vague facebook profiles. She scrolled as far down as she could bear, but gave up upon reaching a selection of obituaries. If her teacher was among any of these articles, she didn’t really want to know. It would, however, explain quite a lot.

She tried again. 

_john sims london_

This also proved fruitless, offering up only a stranger’s LinkedIn profile and a page of the Victoria Cross website regarding a Victorian soldier who had died of tuberculosis in 1881. Again, if Mr Sims turned out to be some kind of ghost, she would rather remain in the dark about it, but she couldn’t deny that the theory was rather appealing. 

Was John a nickname for something? As far as she was aware, it wasn’t the shortened version of anything. Unless-

_johnny sims london_

Someone named Johnnie Sims (a quite frankly appalling spelling of the name). Absolutely nothing else. 

She leaned back against the bed, trying to think. Had he changed his name? Possible, maybe even likely considering his extremely vague answers regarding the knife scar across his neck. Maybe he had been in a gang. Or was there something she was missing? Surely John wasn’t short for anything else. Unless she was spelling it wrong. 

A thought occurred to her and she typed it into her search bar. Maybe it was a stretch, but-

_jonathan sims london_

The results were immediate and quite frankly terrifying. Not only was there an avalanche of photos, most of them the same unflattering staff ID, but a collection of news articles from 2018, a LinkedIn, and a YouTube video. 

Right. 

She clicked on the top article with an edge of panic, one that was, apparently, entirely deserved. 

It was a bloody _wanted persons poster._

Jonathan Sims, 31 (!!), wanted on suspicion of murder (!!!!). Potentially dangerous. 

Fucking hell.

Head reeling slightly, she opened the second site. This one went into more detail, discussing how he was believed to be connected with the brutal murder of a currently unidentified elderly man at the Magnus Institute. He had apparently been witnessed engaging with the victim and had fled the scene shortly afterwards, a fact that sent a wave of terror rushing through Naomi before she noticed the addendum- he had since been removed as a suspect from the investigation. 

Well. That was something, at least. 

The LinkedIn profile didn’t cover anything she hadn’t already been able to guess at, describing his education at Oxford, followed by his career as researcher and then head archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, an establishment that rang distant bells but held no real meaning to her. A quick secondary google revealed it to be an organisation that dealt with investigation of the paranormal, something which despite catching her a little off guard didn’t entirely surprise her. It wasn’t the most unusual thing she had learned in the past three minutes. 

Switching back to her original tab, she opened up the YouTube video, which was from a channel called ‘Ghost Hunt UK’ with several hundred thousand subscribers. Based on the first five minutes alone, it was interesting if slightly overproduced supernatural exploration of Cambridge Military Hospital, and while certainly intriguing, there was nothing that seemed particularly related to her English teacher. That was, until she scrolled through the description. At the bottom of a long list of sound effect credits was a small line of text.

_jonathan sims head archivist of the magnus institute if you’re reading this then fuck you_

Right. So Mr Sims had some kind of feud with a popular YouTuber, held an important position in supernatural research, and had at one point been a wanted criminal. She felt slightly ill.

While not answering the questions she had hoped, her google search had done an excellent job of filling in literally everything else. That was quite enough internet for one day, she decided, powering off her phone and pulling out her English homework. Regardless of whether or not he really had murdered that old man, she certainly wouldn’t be handing in any late assignments.

The ensuing weeks passed, remarkably, without major incident. Exams were fast approaching, yet English lessons remained just as bizarre. Mr Sims’ outfits fluctuated wildly between eccentric elderly man and eccentric indie band member, none of which seemed to follow the teacher dress code and all of which were documented and posted in a dedicated Instagram account. Some lessons were relatively normal, consisting of worksheets and measured discussions, while in others the class arrived to find their teacher already mid-tangent, tape recorder flashing red.

These occurrences, while unnerving and often boring, allowed plenty of time for thought. Naomi had not brought up the results of her google search with either Mr Sims or any of her classmates, though she often wondered whether she should try. He had been a wanted criminal, for fuck’s sake. 

But he wasn’t anymore, and speaking out about it would probably just make things worse for everyone involved. Realistically, it wouldn’t cause any problems with his occupation, God knows the school was constantly desperate for teachers; no, the only real issue would be if it got into the hands of the admin of @mrsimsstanaccount. She shuddered to think of what they would do with that staff ID photo. Plus, she was fairly certain the detectives had been right about removing him as a suspect. There was no way he was capable of picking up a pipe, let alone killing someone with it. 

It didn’t take very long for the class to realise that during his lengthy monologues, Mr Sims wouldn’t interrupt his own spiel for anything, a fact which many began to use to their advantage, sitting very openly on their phones and talking loudly. Testing the limits of this proved interesting, and was a popular experiment for several weeks. It wasn’t rabid chaos, it was order- there were rules about how much noise you could make so as not to attract other teachers, how much destruction you could cause without it being noticeable after the fact. Smoking, though only attempted once, was also prohibited, as it had triggered the fire alarm and forced the whole school to evacuate (Mr Sims had disappeared during this time, so it was impossible to tell whether or not he had finally given up trying to lecture the class on social divisions reflected in literature). It was harmless enough, for the most part. Naomi used the time to switch desks and do some practice questions. 

Of course, Mitchell had to ruin it all. It seemed to be a running theme of his. Upon getting into a severe and apparently spontaneous argument with a second member of the local football club who also happened to be in set 4, he had taken it upon himself to get revenge during class. This had culminated in Mr Sims wrenching a pen knife from Mitchell’s hand, teeth gritted, all the while yelling about the influences of J.B. Priestley. It was an image forever seared onto the minds of all who witnessed it, and despite it not actually being recorded, the encounter could be repeated virtually word for word by most of the school. 

However, it drew the experimentation to a hasty close. The idea that their teacher had been able to tell what was going on the whole time and just hadn’t cared enough to do anything was something that Naomi found actually quite impressive, but that scared the rest of the class into relative submission. They sat in what could generally be considered quiet and waited for the rants to end, paying the barest minimum of attention. 

Hm. Maybe Naomi’s definition of what constituted a major incident had changed rather drastically.

What with the unorthodox lessons they were used to receiving, the announcement of a more traditional practice exam came as a rather unpleasant shock. 

“But sir-”

“Please don’t call me sir, Benjamin.”

“-alright then, Mr Sims, what do we need a practice exam for? The real one’s like a month away!”

A thin smile appeared on the teacher’s face. “I want to ensure you are all appropriately prepared.”

Naturally, Naomi studied. She started the night the assessment was announced and continued with the same intensity throughout the week of preparation available to her. Every possible aid she could find, from practice questions to tutorial videos, was utilised. There was no way she could fail. 

Unfortunately, Mr Sims’ incompetence had not been a factor in her equation. 

The exam was ridiculous, GCSE questions thrown in haphazardly next to ones of his own invention in such a way that it reminded her of a reanimated corpse stitched back together. Or a reheated takeaway. Whatever it was, it was dreadful, circling back on itself and the questions tying each other up in knots, bordering on nonsensical and, it some cases, barely legible. It was the worst fucking test she’d ever taken, and if she passed it would be some sort of miracle. 

Maybe that’s why it happened. Maybe she was upset and confused and bursting with frustration that couldn’t be resolved. She was certainly at a breaking point, so when she turned over her freshly marked paper to reveal a large letter scrawled in red ink, perhaps she finally snapped.

She had failed. 

Tears pricked at her eyes and she blinked them back quickly. No. She would not cry in class. 

But it was too late, it seemed. Mr Sims had noticed something, though what exactly had given up her disappointment she wasn’t sure- was it her face? Had he seen the tears?

“Is everything alright, Naomi?” 

Uncertain of exactly what to say, she nodded rather reluctantly and continued flicking through her paper. 

He sighed. “Tell me.” But something about the words was wrong, something in the way he spoke, and completely without warning she felt her body stiffen, eyes meeting the acrid green that watched her intently. 

_“There is something in the woods behind my house.”_ The words tumbled out involuntarily, rising like a wave of vomit in her throat. She tried to swallow them down, to make them stop, but they continued to pour from her mouth in an incessant flow she could neither control nor make sense of. _“I saw it take my neighbour and no one believes me. Everyone says she simply moved away all of a sudden, just packed up her bags and left, but I know differently. I know the truth. Something stole her in the night and I think it wants to steal me, too.”_

She could hardly hear what she was saying at this point, tongue moving independently. Fear swelled through her body, contorting her face as she tried to force her confession down, but she could already feel it pushing through her throat. Mr Sims’ eyes widened. In one swift motion, he grabbed her by the arm, pulling her out of her seat and towards the door. 

_“I was seven years old when it happened. My sister Grace and I always loved playing in the forest behind our house when we were younger, mostly because it was safe enough without feeling safe. Like we were explorers, completely on our own, the rest of the world barely there at all. She’s older than me, she was ten, and I think my parents put a lot of pressure on her to look after me. We were close as children but- well, that changed. Because of the monster.”_

Suddenly aware of the cold, white walled corridor surrounding her, Naomi forced a deep breath, trying to steady herself, but the words continued to spill out of her. 

_“We would climb over a small fence in our back garden. Our parents knew, of course, but it still felt rebellious. We played games for hours, stupid imaginary ones with endless story arcs and constantly shifting characters. Sometimes we’d be out there right through until dusk, when the woods grew quiet and the dark settled in. I hated the dark, I’d always been terrified of it, so when the last dregs of sunlight started to sink behind the horizon I would drag my sister home, running all the way. But that night I was a little too brave for my own good._

_We had made a plan. For years Grace had been desperate to make a den out of tree branches and sleep in it overnight, but my paranoia had always made that difficult. It took lots of time and effort on her part, but she eventually managed to convince me to help her, armed with as many torches, blankets and biscuits as we could carry. This, we kept a secret from our parents. We both knew very well just how reluctant they’d be to let us spend the night in the forest, no matter how safe it was, and so we told them we were simply doing what we always did- leaving in the early morning and retuning before dark. Thinking back, they were remarkably lenient, some of my friends in the city weren’t even allowed to go to the park on their own, but they made the line explicitly clear, and we spent years never daring to cross it.”_

A figure brushed past her elbow and she was temporarily jolted back into the present to see one of the French teachers shooting her a concerned look as they continued down the hallway. The absurdity of what exactly was going on hit her very suddenly, and she almost laughed. Tried to laugh. It sounded more choking.

The garbled flow of words continued. 

_“It was late spring, so sunset was quite late. Maybe around eight or nine? We had made our den many hours before, a colossal structure of twigs and moss and leaves, and were just settling down when I started to panic. We should have seen it coming, both of us, but as the sky started to grow dim things changed. I don’t know what exactly it was that set me off, maybe the shadows, maybe the strange sounds, maybe the realisation that soon all there would be was the suffocating darkness of night, but whatever it was, I started to scream, begging my sister to take me home. She refused, angry at my betrayal, and that’s when-”_

For the first time, there was a pause. Barely enough space to take a breath, certainly not long enough to calm down, but it was there. Like this awful force was just as reluctant to convey what came next. 

_“-that’s when I started to run._

_I don’t know what I was doing, it was a completely stupid decision, but I was terrified. I was yelling, I think, and sprinting as fast as I could, but in my confusion and fear I didn’t think about the path I was taking. I just started running. Grace was chasing me, of course, but I think that made it all worse. It felt like something was after me, something other than her, and I just moved faster and faster, trying to get out, trying to get home.”_

The words were bursting through in a torrent now, unrelenting, so fast that she couldn’t register a single one. 

_“It was properly dark by this point, but it quickly became obvious that I was travelling in completely the wrong direction. I should have reached the fence, but there was only empty air. I was certain there was a second thing after me, following behind my sister, but I dared not turn to check. Somehow I thought that if I just kept running for long enough, I’d be safe, and maybe there was some logic to that- the forest doesn’t go on forever, not in any direction. I should have reached the village, eventually, or a main road- there’s one that curls round the edge of the woods like a snake, covering most directions- and maybe it was the panic but it felt like I was going for miles. And I know it sounds stupid, given that it was pitch black, but I didn’t recognise the woods anymore. You have to understand, we spent years wandering around and exploring, we’d pretty much mapped the entire area, so I would know, and this section of trees was different. Off, somehow. I was exhausted, fuelled purely by adrenaline, deaf to everything but my own heartbeat._

_Then I tripped. Tree branch, I think. Honestly, it’s shocking that it didn’t happen sooner given just how tired I had become, but it shocked me no less. My toes caught on it and I was flung forward sharply, momentum catching up with me, and I slammed into the dirt face first. Maybe I blacked out, because the next thing I remember is sitting against a tree trunk with my sister screaming at me. She was asking me what I was doing, did I know how stupid that was, the usual. I didn’t know how to respond, so I simply started crying. Then I realised I knew where we were- it was a narrow strip of wood less than a mile from home, close to the hill where Mrs Bradley lived, and the relief only made me cry harder. When my sister told me to shut up, I protested, so she clamped my mouth shut and pulled me down into the leaves. It was only when I saw the woman that I realised what she was doing._

_Well, I say woman, it was difficult to tell from that distance. And even if she had been a woman, she wasn’t. Because- she wasn’t human. She was some kind of monster. A werewolf is the closest I can compare it to, but not the way we think of werewolves as sometimes human sometimes wolf. It was like this awful fusion of animal and person, no fur but God, the teeth. She moved on all fours at a speed that any normal human would not be able to achieve, snarling in a nauseating voice like nothing I have ever heard before. I was absolutely convinced I was going to die._

_There was still a hand over my mouth so I couldn’t have screamed, even if I had wanted to. We lay there on the ground, barely breathing, staring as the figure crept towards us. I don’t think she saw us, but she must have smelled us or sensed us somehow because there was no doubt that we were what she was after. We were the prey._

_It sounds terrible to say now, knowing what happened next, but I have never felt relief like I did when I spotted Mrs Bradley strolling down the path from her house, dog firmly attached to its lead. With all the noise she was making there was no way the creature wouldn’t notice her, and sure enough, the movement was swift and immediate. The woman- the wolf- turned around at just the exact moment Mrs Bradley noticed her. She howled, and it was an noise I will not soon forget, blistering with rage and morbid delight, a cry that froze my muscles in place. Mrs Bradley dropped the lead and sprinted in the opposite direction, yelling in fear, begging for help, but the creature was far too fast for her to stand a chance and she grabbed her in her gaping maw of a mouth, pushing her down and pinning her to the ground._

_I am not ashamed to say that I ran._

_My sister trailing behind me, I fled through the trees at such a speed that I could have easily lost my footing and fallen again, this time with perhaps more disastrous results. We ran until my breath came in shallow wheezes and I dropped to my knees, sobbing. The fence was in sight, but I physically couldn’t keep going, so Grace picked me up in her arms and carried me the final few metres to safety._

_It was 2am, and Mum and Dad had been out of their minds with worry, of course. They cried and yelled at us and we just sat there taking it, waiting for them to finally give up, silently agreeing to never tell them what we’d seen and done. We both knew it would break them, I think._

_The next day they told me Mrs Bradley had moved away to stay with her son in Norfolk. I told them she couldn’t be, that it wasn’t possible, and in a ridiculous fit of anger I broke my pact and told them everything I’d seen, every last graphic detail. They didn’t believe me, said I’d been watching too many violent TV shows and I was making it up for attention. I went crying to Grace, begging her to help me, to just tell them, but she looked at me coolly and told me she hadn’t the slightest clue what I was talking about._

_She keeps it up to this day. Even the nights when we both woke up sweating. Even though she lied about having a bad ankle so she didn’t have to join a running club. Even though she refuses to go for walks on her own._

_We both see the shadows, I know it. They crawl out of the woods at night and stand outside my window even though there’s nothing to cast them and by all rights I shouldn’t be able to see them in the dark. They bare their teeth at me._

_We don’t go into the woods anymore.”_

The furious surge of words abated at last and the spell was broken. No longer was she standing at her window watching the corner of woodland, but crouched in the corridor, held up by a concerned Mr Sims. 

Quite suddenly the wave of emotion that had been rising above her for years broke over her head and she started to weep. 

“I don’t- I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened-”

“It’s ok.”

“I don’t remember any of that, why-”

“Naomi. Breathe.”

She nodded, choked back a a breath, and leaned against the wall. God. 

“I’m so sorry. Really, I am.”

“What happened?”

Mr Sims didn’t respond, instead screwing his eyes shut and biting his lip. Like he was trying not to cry. 

Finally, he spoke, the same pained words echoing through the hallway. “I’m so sorry.”

Their next English lesson was taken by a substitute. 

As a rule, Naomi didn’t remember her dreams. They were mostly jumbles of nonsense, bits and pieces of ideas picked up and immediately discarded.

She wasn’t exactly sure of when the new dreams (or more accurately nightmares) had begun. The night she returned home from school after what she internally referred to as the mortifying ordeal of being known, she hadn’t slept in long enough chunks for dreaming at all. In the nights beyond that, though, it was difficult to tell. Had she slept, had she dreamed? Had she run wildly through the woods while that grotesque monster chased her?

And, most importantly, at what point had her English teacher started appearing?

He was there, in every nightmarish recollection. Watching. Standing completely still in combinations of clothes even stranger than those he wore to class, absorbing the pain and terror as she screamed. Though after a few nights they all started to blur together, she could swear she once saw him wearing a T-shirt with the word ‘sorry’ written on it in black sharpie. 

If her teacher was haunting her dreams, that was his business. She no longer had anything left to lose, zero fucks remaining to give; her time in Mr Jonathan Sims’ class had made sure of that. She had mistaken him for dead. Been knocked over by his boyfriend. Confessed her darkest secret to both him and her entire class. She was done. So long as she passed her exams, she really couldn’t make herself care about how weird everything was. 

She lived in a small town in the Highlands. Somehow, she’d seen stranger shit than this. 

Mr Sims did return eventually, though by that time there were only two weeks of lessons remaining before study leave began and exams started. He seemed far calmer than before, the manic energy that he had previously exuded duller and, somehow, kinder. Only once did he rant for longer than could be deemed normal, and even that was brief compared to his early monologues. Things were- well- fine. Not ordinary, not by a long shot, but fine. When he wasn’t consuming her fear in nightmares (an unpleasant experience at the best of times) he was actually a fairly good English teacher. A chaotic mess, certainly, but he had read more books than anyone she’d ever met, and spoke about them willingly and at length; he was decent at explaining things and seemed to take to the Scottish curriculum with surprising dexterity. He mostly communicated with Naomi through pitying looks and there was unmistakable guilt in his voice whenever he spoke to her, but that was ok. If he had anything to do with the distressing dreams she had every night, he probably owed her a little guilt. 

But things were fine. 

When the two weeks ended, he waved the fourth years goodbye cheerfully, wishing everyone luck in their exams, the relief palpable on his face. She actually almost apologised to the man on her way out, but decided against it. If he’d struggled with her class, he should see the primary sevens who were joining after the summer.

The night before the English exam, Samantha forwarded her a video. 

It was poorly shot and incredibly blurry, but there was still no mistaking the man singing at the front, nor the list of names printed below the title. ‘The Mechanisms’ listed Jon Sims as a member, and the video clearly displayed a university age Mr Sims singing with even more passion than he had shown during his lecture on why Edwin Morgan was a terrible poet. 

Naomi watched the first thirty seconds before closing the tab and powering down her phone. She refused to get distracted by something like this. Mr Sims had given her enough reasons to fail her exams. She would not accept another.

The world ended two days before results came out. 

She honestly wasn’t sure if she should be grateful.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading!! if you made it this far i honestly salute u because im Not A Fan of this but figured since i spent four days on it i should probably post it!! how the fuck did i write 9000 words about this its the longest fan work I’ve ever made i think i was possessed anyway hope u enjoyed!!!!
> 
> p.s. search @mrsimsstanaccount on instagram for a surprise :)


End file.
